


La Petit Mort

by Nyah



Category: Dark Knight Rises (2012)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-04-19
Updated: 2013-04-20
Packaged: 2017-12-08 22:46:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,602
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/766929
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nyah/pseuds/Nyah
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"You're going to forgive me for the pearls."</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: Standard fair, no claims to ownership, all in fun

**La Petite Mort**

Bruce Wayne had always slept like the dead. From childhood-exhausted from play-to adulthood-muscles languid, body grievously punished—it was his habit to fall asleep like he was falling into the grave. He dropped off so fast that more than one childhood sleepover with Rachel Dawes had seen her checking his breath to make sure he was still alive.

It was a weakness, he knew, but one of the few he'd never bothered to guard against. And these days, less than ever. The Batman wasn't a hero any more; there weren't any enemies to catch him sleeping.

And so it was that it took a hand on his inner thigh, nails scraping the length of an old scar, to penetrate the satin shroud of sleep that draped his mind. He fought in the manner of dreamers against heavy lids and heavier limbs, adrenaline outpacing instinct, instinct outpacing thought. And so it was that by the time speech fell thickly from his mouth, his body had already seen to the threat. "What …?" His eyes were last to adjust, sluggish pupils just beginning to accommodate, confirming what he'd already learned from scent and touch.

His addled brain inventoried position of trunk and limbs. He'd woken fully astride a body, knees pinning down hips and braced against warm, decidedly feminine curves. His right hand pinned one much smaller to the mattress. And then there was his left arm pinning a pair of shoulders inelegantly so his forearm pressed at the tender flesh of a neck. And there, in the dim glow of moonlight and distant Gotham, was a string of perfect pearls, trapped in the junction of his forearm and the intruder's collarbone. Her collarbone.

"Ms. Kyle." Her face was inches away from his own, too close, almost, to be discernible. But he could make out the sweep of her cheeks, the soft, sculpted blades of her lips. "Those are my mother's pearls."

The body beneath him was warm and pliant, no struggle lurking its limbs. She didn't even acknowledge his forearm braced across her neck except to stretch that neck luxuriously, exposing the graceful, vulnerable traces of veins and arteries. "Which is why I'm returning them, obviously," she said, like it was.

"We've met twice," he argues. "And both times, you stole from me."

"Your point?" Her eyebrows raise and he can see the exact place her lip would curve if she weren't biting down a smile.

The hand not pinned to bed had remained free, it skated down his ribs now, almost tickling. If she'd had a knife she could have gutted him with his own body weight. As things stood, her fingertips were roaming low on the plane of his abdomen. No fumbling ventures for her, he might have her pinned but she was circling like he was prey.

"Why you'd bother returning something now is not obvious." And then, because he knows she expected to unsettle him, "And why you'd do it naked …. Unless it's …. Is this guilt? Did you crash my car?"

He watches laughter take her unawares, her body shaking and features dissolving from smirk to grin. The hand on his belly stops, palm going flat as that calculated, seductive composure cracks for a moment. "You're funny. For a billionaire shut in."

She recovers quickly, limbs suddenly tense, and flips them over so he's the one trapped on his back. "I don't do guilt, Mr. Wayne," she's all glorious swagger now, breathy voice raising his auditory nerves to hum with proximity.

The heavy blankets of his bed, twice-twisted, leave little to the imagination. As if his body hadn't already noted the feel of every curve. The string of pearls swims in his vision, bright against the richer tone of her skin, hard against the soft rise of her breasts. "I'm not immune to a good sob story." Her lips drop from his ear to graze just beneath it. He's sure she's close enough to hear him swallow hard. "Orphaned boy, mama's pearls." He can almost hear an eye roll in her voice but her lips fasten on his neck and he forgets immediately. "But you did say they look better on me. What's a girl to do?"

She leans down to kiss him then. There's no rush to it. She kisses like she has all night, like she can have him however long she wants. When he realizes his hand have stayed exactly where she pinned them, even with hers wandering, he thinks she might not be wrong. He let's out a breath, one louder than he intended and commingled with some epithet not even he can hear.

"Was that a suggestion?"

"You seemed to have it all figured out." He dips a hand under the blanket, fingers moving as purposefully as hers had when their positions were reversed. That he was aroused, she couldn't have failed to notice but he didn't plan to be the only one coming undone.

She doesn't gasp when he finds her wet and warm, only closes her eyes in a self-satisfied smile, letting her head loll while her hips circle. She gazes down at him from under heavy lids. "You're going to forgive me for the pearls."

"Like you care," he says, voice harsher now more like the one he'd worn so often in the dark.

She places a palm flat against his chest, leaning so the pearls hang between their lips. Her hands wraps around him in a fist, gliding, guiding. "It feels a little like I care, doesn't it?"

He wakes up rudely, shuddering on the brink of climax, feeling electric with the lingering wet dreams of a billionaire shut in. He groans into the sheets, banishing half-remembered images of an impudent thief in nothing but a string of stolen pearls.

But his brain calls up the scent of her on his sheets and his skin remembers the warm weight, gone hot where their bodies touched. His body was not going to submit to the cold iron of his will, not after so long, not after the way she smiled. "I don't do guilt, Mr. Wayne," she'd said. He resolves to follow her lead.


	2. No, you're not

"I'm sorry they took all your money, Mr. Wayne!" It's her way of taking back a tiny shred of control after he barged into her home uninvited and … well, she recognizes the irony in that complaint.

"No, you're not." He springs back like a child to the doorframe to catch the last word and it hits her that this is a third face to Bruce Wayne she's seen in as many meetings. The realization kills the comeback forming on her tongue.  _Two-faced_ , people call her, the cat burglar who lives all nine lives inside of one. If two-faced is an insult then what's a girl to call Bruce Wayne?

Someone with a shot at keeping up.

"Asshole," Jen says from the doorway to the bathroom. And then, "He likes you."

Instead of citing all evidence to the contrary, Selina replies, "Everybody likes me." It's true, they do, right up until they don't.

It's starting to rain and she watches Bruce Wayne stare at the ancient, faded remains of the city bus map that adorns her street corner. His hair's too long out of it's neat slick and it drips onto his shoulders. There's something so young about him just now, like all that money was a weight he was waiting to shake off. She hates for that too.

He's soaked through in minutes, the fine white fabric of his collared shirt gone nearly transparent, clinging to the strong lines of the body she first saw swathed in a bathrobe and shuffling behind a cane.

"You're staring," Jen says and Selina can hear the smirk in her voice. She knows how Jen thinks, knows her friend is always hoping for a fairytale but she'll take a good scandal any day.

"You should have seen the guy when we first met," Selina says in way of explanation. "He looked more like a corpse."

Jen's still smirking but then she stops, her face folding into its rare, genuine shape. "Damn, Selina."

"What?"

"I mean the guy disappears for like ten years and people are talking about facial scars and a hunchback and all that shit and then you show up and suddenly he's all back from the dead and looking like sex. I don't know, baby girl … sounds like your fault. You're kind of responsible for him."

"I took something her cared about," Selina replies, turning back to the window. "Take the one thing a person bothers to put in a safe out of a house full of expensive shit and you're going to get some attention."

Jen backs off with the philosophizing and just smacks her lips at Wayne, now lounging with his back against the bus stop sign. Selina wonders if he feels their eyes on him. The force of his gaze was something of sticking point for her since that first meeting when she stood to find him staring hard at her down the sight of a bow. For an absurd moment she wondered what it meant when the ghosts started seeing  _you_.

The dance floor had been different. Gone was that look in his eyes like a raw nerve, like long-dormant senses were awake for the first time in years and focused on nothing but her. In a suit and tie he'd been elegance incarnate, pinning her with eyes so open she knew he was hiding more than she could ever guess. He'd been armored in good manners and good will, even as he slipped the pearls from her neck as if the theft hadn't troubled him at all, as if…. Maybe Jen had a point. Whether he knew it or not, Bruce Wayne was trying pretty damn hard to act like he took nothing she did personally.

She wonders what it would be like to run into this new Bruce, this prince of beggars, at a high society event. She can picture it now, how he catches her at yet another charity gala, something insane and exclusive. He's broke but welcome with open arms because the invitation was already written in his blood.

She's after a mark with a mild fetish for the sight of an exquisite spinal column known in certain circles and her gown is cut daringly low in the back to accommodate. All night she's felt the eyes on her skin and the whispers that follow, feels the hovering charge of a dozen hands tempted to skim the line of her back. Then there's a hand warmly, gently,  _boldly_  crossing the line that's tantalized Gotham's aristocracy for the better part of a night.

His hand doesn't linger but rises to her shoulder, leaving a span of skin across her lower back that seems to notice suddenly that it's naked. There's no shock on her face when she turns to see Bruce Wayne, only when she sees that he's almost grinning, delighted to see her, delighted to catch her at her game.

It's Elton John or some shit providing the music because, yes, it's that exclusive. "Dance with me." And, god, she'd laugh in his face but there's this  _note_  in his voice she can't pretend to miss. He's not talking foxtrot, he's talking tango.

"I hate this song," she says.

"No you don't ," he replies, pulling her close, closer than she wants to be to him. Or anyone.

He knows it, she can see it in his smile, feel it in his step across the dance floor, The last time they danced he was all justice and dignity and she answered by stealing his car. This time he's not holding back, he's caught her and he's gloating the way he wouldn't allow himself to do that last time. This is revenge. Broke and bankrupt, he's lighter, rising up through the cracked surface of the billionaire recluse, the half-mad wunderkind who had never been more than a lost cause.

"I'm sorry they took all your money, Mr. Wayne," she says.

His grin nearly cracks her composure. He laughs shortly at the familiar joke. "How sorry?" Heat rises in her blood at the way he doesn't even try to sound innocent.

"Here's a hint," she says, pulling him close, leaning till her lips skim his Adam's apple. "If you're going to try for emotional blackmail make sure you try it on someone who cares."

He kisses her then, raises her chin with the barest of touches. He doesn't steal a kiss the way she had; she has time to see it coming, just not enough time to convince herself to turn away.

"It feels a little like you care."

She lingers too long against his lips for any statement of denial to ring true. "What do you want, Mr. Wayne?"

He looks like he's about to kiss her again but she's got a palm against his chest and they've stopped in the middle on the dance floor. And, fuck, she hates to make a scene. Unless it's one she planned.

He wraps a hand around her wrist like a conspiracy, like instead of enemies they might just be sparing partners. "I'm poor now," he says. "I could use a place to sleep tonight."

The laugh she chooses is polished and haughty and delivered right in his face because this has to be a game. "You want to stay at my place? You still have a mansion."

"I like your place," his hands around her waist are very warm with long fingers lingering lower than good manners dictate.

"I'll make you sleep on the floor." She puts a lifetime of sass into the curve of an eyebrow but in the soft party light he looks like an angel and standing this close he smells like sin. She breathes him in and finds herself being kissed.

"No you won't."

People are probably looking now because that's Bruce Wayne's life; he shows up and people pay attention. It's not the kind of position she wants to be in, barring the GCPD, this is the last crowd she wants remembering her face.

Her heart's beating too fast and he's probably ruined her chances of buttering up her mark and she's finding it unaccountably difficult to lie. What she does is suck his tongue into her mouth, kiss him like he's never been kissed by a cool, rich, Gotham girl. It was that or say, "Probably not," and she's not quite that far gone.

He's not some hard-smitten mark who smiles at her stupidly and can't believe his luck. He breaks the kiss, looking down at her from the advantage of height. "Get your coat." It's not a command just an inevitability.

"Selina." Jen shoves gently at her shoulder. "Selina."

"What?" She asks, annoyed and too warm despite the early autumn chill.

"Welcome back."

"What?"

"I called your name like five times. I was starting to think you had a seizure."

Selina turns a skeptical look to her friend. "I'm standing."

Jen snorts, "Barely. Did you go weak in the knees for a minute there or was that me?"

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"You don't think it got a little hot in here? You know, with poor Bruce Wayne down there all soaking wet and…."

"Jen?"

"Yes?"

"Shut up." Selina takes a last look at her erstwhile victim and current tormenter. His clothes and hair are plastered to every plane and angle of his body. He looks like a half-drown cat. One with very nice shoulders. "And call a taxi for that poor sucker."


End file.
